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This “scary” photo has been doing the rounds so here’s some information about what these chemicals in our beloved hot cross buns actually are..and whether we should really stop eating them (and not just for lent) Ethyl alcohol (or ethanol). Found in high concentrations in alcoholic beverages. There’s your “horrendous chemical” flammable carcinogen right there. […]

An area of GAMSAT Section III that people tend to get a little worried (or let’s just be honest, completely freak out!) about is Organic Chemistry. In my opinion, with a good knowledge of the language of O-Chem, and good use of pattern recognition skills there’s no reason why most candidates can’t do really well […]

Our busy lives, the 24 hour news cycle, the dynamic, often fleeting interaction and exposure we have to news and information and even with those around us – it’s hardly conducive to thoughtful pondering or philosophical contemplation. When we are busy, tired, rushed…even friendly banter or debate in the form of a well constructed argument is often […]

This is the sequel to the post Acids & Bases: a Guide to Tutorial 9 Part 1. See below for hints and tips and things you should know for questions 9.17-9.36. Questions 9.17, 9.18, 9.19, 9.20, 9.21 Using equilibrium expressions for pKa to calculate pH and vice versa Understand how to write equations for the dissociation […]

The GAMSAT test run. Otherwise known as the “trial run”, “first attempt”, “going to see how I go”. It can be a very beneficial experience, hey, it might be enough to get you a place into med school! But you can easily end up as just another GAMSAT crash test dummy. Rather than squandering a lot of money […]

When you’re getting started with Chemistry, the volume of information thrown at you can seem overwhelming. Students taking the cbsquared Chemistry for GAMSAT course have a host of resource documents available to them in the course already, but I thought I would post a few extra online resources with a few great images to help […]

Once students arrive at the physical chemistry topics of the Chemistry for GAMSAT course, they are confronted with a subset of mathematical skills that are required. The maths is quite straight forward believe it or not, but the big equations and the use of logarithms can make these questions seem more difficult, and let’s face it, […]

This week, in the Chemistry for GAMSAT course, we start on the GASES topic. For many, this topic also marks their first foray into maths and graphing as part of their GAMSAT preparation. The GAMSAT is notorious for using graphs to represent data, and for requiring that graphs are interpreted correctly to answer a question. […]

Ok, let’s get something straight. There’s a lot of language to get your head around when you first start out with Chemistry, and it all starts with how the very smallest chemical particle is measured. In topic 1 of the Chemistry for GAMSAT course, we start from the very basics, so this post is to […]

Hybridisation is useful to understand for the GAMSAT at face value, and also to gain a deeper understanding of more difficult organic chemsitry concepts. For GAMSAT, focus on sp, sp2 and sp3 hybridisation. You can understand hybridisation the quick way or the more in depth way. The quick way is mostly about simply matching the […]